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Semantic Anglicisms in Contemporary Metropolitan French

Semantic Anglicisms in Contemporary Metropolitan French. Betsy Kerr University of Minnesota - Twin Cities bjkerr@umn.edu. Picone 1996:. Semantic anglicism:

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Semantic Anglicisms in Contemporary Metropolitan French

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  1. Semantic Anglicismsin Contemporary Metropolitan French Betsy Kerr University of Minnesota - Twin Cities bjkerr@umn.edu

  2. Picone 1996: Semantic anglicism: « This is when a preexisting French word, morpheme or locution shifts in meaning or becomes more extended or more restricted in meaning due to imitative language contact with English. »

  3. Most often cited example: Fr. réaliser (V) • Traditional (pre-20th-century) meaning: « to make real, i.e. concretize, make real, achieve, fulfill » Collocations: Det + rêve, objectif, projet, économie, film, étude, tâche, travail • New meaning added in 20th-century: « to become aware of » Synonym: se rendre compte de Trésor de la langue française informatisé (TLFI): includes this meaning but notes purists’ objections; still sometimes labelled ‘colloquial’ or ‘nonstandard’.

  4. Research questions • What is the extent of usage of the given neologism? In what text types/registers is it most frequent? • Is there evidence that the neologism has displaced either of the following: • the same form with the traditional meaning? • a pre-existing synonymous lexical item? • Is there evidence of ‘specialization’ (restriction) of the neologism with respect to meaning, context, pragmatic function?

  5. Methodology Quantitative comparisons: • Relative frequency in different registers (where feasible) • Relative frequency of tokens with the new meaning vs. tokens with the traditional meaning • Comparative frequency of the neologism vs. its older synonym (where applicable and feasible) Qualitative comparisons: Comparison of meaning, context, pragmatic function of the neologism with respect to those of the same lexeme with the traditional meaning and those of the pre-existing synonym

  6. Corpora Journalistic French • Le monde 1998 - The Compleat Lexical Tutorhttp://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_f.html 1,110,392 words • Chambers-Rostand Corpus Le monde, L’Humanité, La Dépêche du Midi 2002-03 Sampling of articles in 6 categories: editorial, cultural, sports, national news, international news, finance 1,076,275 words Concordancer: Antconc3.2.0m downloadable at http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/software.html

  7. Corpora Internet French • Leeds Internet Corpora (2005) Large open-source corpus; institutional and personal sites, blogs, etc. Approximately 200,000,000 words Maximum concordancer output: 1000 hits http://corpus.leeds.ac.uk/internet.html

  8. Relative frequency of neologism in different registers: réaliser

  9. Comparative frequency of neologism and its synonym: réaliser / se rendre compte

  10. Comparative frequency: tu réalises / tu te rends compte(2 sg.informal) Leeds Internet Corpus tu réalises 11 tokens tu te rends compte 94 tokens « Autonomous » discourse use 45 tokens Mais tu te rends compte !!! La nuit dernière, j' ai eu TROIS orgasmes tu te rends compte! Tu te rends compte, dans cette ville il n' y avait plus d' eau. Un monstre. Tu te rends compte?

  11. Le retour se fit à vélo et fut comme tous les retours • de vol, avec encore la gueule de bois et la tête • dans les nuages. Je ne réalise pas encore tout bien - • demain, peut-être, je me rendrais mieux compte • du bonheur ineffable que m'a apporté cette journée. • Victorien Marchand, Rêveries d’un aviateur soliatire • http://www.pilotlist.org/bestof/resultats.php3?auteur=Victorien%20Marchand

  12. contrôler (V) Traditional meaning: « to verify, check, inspect, supervise » New meaning: « to exercise restraint or direction upon; dominate, command » TLFI includes new meaning, no comment, first attestation 1936.

  13. Relative frequency of neologism in different registers: contrôler

  14. futur (N) • Predominant use is adjectival: e.g. le futur roi • Uncontroversial nominal use referring to tense: • le temps futur -> le futur • Additional nominal use appears to be longstanding, but has been criticized by purists, due to similarity to English. • synonym: avenir (N) • TLFI includes the latter use, with no comment; first attestations from late 19th century.

  15. Relative frequency of putative neologism in different registers: futur (N)

  16. Comparative frequency of putative neologism and its synonym: futur (N)/ avenir (N)

  17. Internet Corpus:Comparative frequency of collocations « near future » futur proche 188avenir proche 225 proche futur10proche avenir 197 Total 298 Total 432 « distant future » futur lointain 30 avenir lointain 68 lointain futur 9 lointain avenir 12 Total 39 Total 80

  18. opportunité (N) Traditional meaning is abstract: « quality of something that is opportune; opportuneness » Putative anglicism/neologism is a metonymic extension: « favorable circumstance or occasion; opportunity » • synonym: occasion TLFi includes this meaning, noting its increasing frequency in the press and its condemnation by purists.

  19. Relative frequency of neologism in different registers: opportunité

  20. Comparative frequency of ‘neologism’ and its synonym: opportunité / occasion

  21. Additional observations:opportunité • In some publications, e.g. L’Express, the business sense of ‘opportunity to buy or invest’ predominates; elsewhere, including Internet Corpus, no particular context predominates. • Frequent in sports contexts, but so is occasion . • The vitality of the competing synonym occasion is assured by its other uses. • Non-synonymous uses of occasion: Chambers Corpus 171/254 = 67% Le monde 1998 170/224 = 76% Internet Corpus (sample) 59/100 = 59%

  22. attractif (ADJ) • Concrete scientific meaning: « having the capacity of attracting » • Figurative meaning: « capable of exercising an attraction » • Extended figurative meaning: « which attracts by seducing; pleasing, alluring » Synonym: attrayant (‘appealing’), intéressant (‘interesting’) TLFi: The latter sense is labelled as archaic, attested in 15th c. but not again until the 19th c. (vs. continuous use in Eng. from the 16th c. - OED).

  23. Relative frequency of ‘neologism’ in different registers: attractifNote: Virtually all tokens have the ‘new’ meaning. A few exceptions from the Internet Corpus are a handful of occurrences with force and pouvoir/puissance (‘power’).

  24. For English, the Brown Corpus (Compleat Lexical Tutor) shows the following: • 39 total tokens of attractive • 19 tokens (49%) = « visually attractive, pretty, handsome »; 12 modifying animate nouns (11 female) • If attractif were a direct transfer from English,one could expect a certain proportion of tokens with the meaning « handsome, pretty, visually appealing », most often modifying animates. • But this is not the case. Comparison with English usage: attractive

  25. Semantic content common to virtually all Fr. tokens: • « having the capacity to attract ». • The most common (understood) object being a buyer or investor, the most common contexts (esp. in journalistic texts) are business/finance and technology. • Common collocates: prix, placements (‘investments’), marché (‘market’), taux/tarif (‘rate’), offre, contenu (‘content’), jeu (‘game’) • In the Internet Corpus, which shows more diversity of context, another common object is people exercising mobility. • Common collocates arewords referring to locations: zone, territoire, zone, environnement, pays (‘country’), site(‘website’)

  26. Comparison with synonyms:attrayant (‘appealing’), intéressant • Comparative frequency in Internet Corpus: attractif742 (0.0037%) attrayant 995 (0.0050%) • Comparative frequency of collocations with prix (‘prices’): prix attrayants 7 prix attractifs 59 prix intéressants 81 • Contexts of attrayant are more diverse, lacking the concentration in business/finance, but showing overlap with attractif with respect to collocates referring to places. Common collocates of attrayant: • aspect (‘aspect’), chose (thing’), côté (‘side, aspect’), façon (‘way’), option, caractère • paysage (‘landscape’), lieu (‘place’), ville (‘city’) • aspect (‘appearance’), présentation, forme, couleurs

  27. connecter, déconnecter,connexion / connection TLFi: • connecter(V)Elec. « to connect by means of electrical conductors »(1951) • déconnecter (V) Elec. and fig. « to disconnect » (1957) • connexion (N)Abstract meaning: « link between certain phenomena or ideas » (1338!); also Anat. and Elec. Innovative uses: • Officially sanctioned: déconnecté (p.p.) « disconnected » • Not officially sanctioned: • Fig. (se)connecter, connecté (synonyme lier) • connexion = « person connected with another »

  28. Innovative uses: (dé)connecter, etc. Fig. déconnecté (p.p.) « disconnected » This form+meaning accounts for 1/2 of all forms in Chambers Corpus. • le monde rural reste largement déconnecté de toute modernité (Le monde) • (referring to young people) les plus déconnectés (Le monde) Fig. (se) connecter Absent from Le monde 1998 and Chambers Corpus Internet Corpus: 17 tokens = 0.0001% (finite sg. forms only) • "Comment se connecterà sa spiritualité ?”(Leeds Internet Corpus) • (in a theater review) Pour ce rendez-vous de janvier, connecté autour de l'histoire familiale et de l'intimité, … (Le monde 2008) connexion = « person connected with another » Very infrequent in Internet Corpus only • la bonne connexion haut placée susceptible de vous assurer une subvention (Leeds Internet Corpus)

  29. rejoindre (V) Traditional meanings (TLFi): • « to join together what was separated » • « to return to a place or to the company of a person or persons» • « to meet up with, catch up with » Innovative extension: • « to become a part, member, employee of » Object is a sg. N referring to a collectivity: groupe, équipe (‘team’), mouvement, staff, organisation, nouns denoting a sports team, company, political party Synonyms: se joindre à,devenir membre de, adhérer à, s’inscrire à This use is not mentioned in TLFi.

  30. Relative frequency of neologism in different registers: rejoindre

  31. Additional observation:rejoindre les rangs (de) Occasional occurrences in journalistic and Internet corpora • rang, N = « row » (Germ. orgin, attested in OF) • les rangs = « group of men serving in a military unit » • TLFi inlcudes it as a set expression. Google shows it to be very common, along with joindre les rangs, on the Internet. Frequent context: invitation to join a company or organization. Outside of this idiom, joindre does not show the same extension as rejoindre to the English-like usage.

  32. consultant, -e (N) • Archaic but undergoing revival: « one who consults (asks advice of) another » This usage is common in the Internet Corpus in occult and psychiatric contexts: Le consultant jette lui-même des grains au hasard sur les cartes. • Appositive use: médecin/avocat consultant (« consulting doctor/lawyer ») - early 19th C. (OED traces the comparable Eng. usage to Fr.: obs. sense of consulter = « to give professional counsel ») • Putative synonyms: conseil (« counsel »), conseiller (« adviser »), expert

  33. Relative frequency of neologism in different registers: consultantNote: For the following corpora, all tokens have the ‘new’ meaning. Leeds Internet Corpus: In a sample of 659 nominal tokens: 44 (7%) = « one who seeks advice » 615 (93%) = Eng. « consultant »

  34. programme (N) • « set of actions one proposes to accomplish toward a certain purpose » • attested from the 17th C. • Specific uses: « program (set of projects), agenda, political platform, schedule, plan, course of study, computer program » • TLFi does not include « TV / radio program » • Dictionnaire TV5 monde: ‘Ensemble des émissions [« broadcasts »] d’une station de radio ou de télévision. Une émission en particulier. ’

  35. Relative frequency of neologism in different registers: programme*Note: Some skepticism is in order here, due to difficulty of distinguishing the two meanings cited in TV5 Dictionary. All contexts are related to buying/selling, importation/exportation.

  36. Comparative frequency of neologism and its synonym: programme / émission

  37. Results • Neither journalistic nor Internet French are overrun by English-like uses of French words. • Particular patterns of comparative frequency vary with the particular lexical item. • There is no apparent evidence of displacement of either the ‘traditional’ use of the same item or of its pre-existing synonyms.

  38. Conclusion • In every case, the shift in question is sufficiently motivated by factors internal to French that recourse to the influence of English as the sole or primary explanation of the shift is unnecessary. These factors include: • high degree of semantic proximity of the traditional and new meanings • neologism is distinguished from pre-existing synonym(s) by slight nuance (opportunité, attractif) • shift of syntactic category (futur, consultant) • greater syntactic simplicity of the neologism compared to the pre-existing synonym(s) (réaliser, rejoindre)

  39. Pedagogical Implications • Instruction should be based on current usage. Of the 9 items studied here: • 2 appear to be very marginal or unacceptable (connecter, programme). • 2 are entirelyacceptable and have no precise synonym (contrôler, consultant). • 5 are entirely acceptable but have co-existing synonyms (réaliser, opportunité, attractif, futur, rejoindre) Learners should be able to use these alternative means of expression and should understand any constraints on the use of the neologism. In other words, they should understand the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic particularities of each of the given items.

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